


A Broken Angel Sings

by SeekingIdlewild



Series: Hymns for Lost Angels [4]
Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels, M/M, Pre-Slash, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-15
Packaged: 2018-03-06 18:22:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3144044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeekingIdlewild/pseuds/SeekingIdlewild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rush encounters a creature on the jungle planet who is both strangely familiar and entirely unexpected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Revelation

_All the years combine, they melt into a dream_  
 _A broken angel sings from a guitar_  
 _In the end there’s just a song comes crying up the night_  
 _Through all the broken dreams and vanished years_

“Stella Blue” by the Grateful Dead

 

* * *

 

The air was thick and hot and smelled of growing and blooming and rotting things. Rush inhaled deeply and expelled the breath with a grimace. It also smelled ever-so-faintly of sulfur. That might bear investigating, but for now, there was no point venturing too far from the Stargate. There were food sources aplenty right here in this jungle clearing, provided that they all turned out to be as edible as they looked. He picked an orangey-red fruit from a nearby branch and sniffed it experimentally. It smelled promising, like something he remembered from his homeland.

All around the clearing, various crew members were collecting fruit and tubers and anything else that looked remotely edible. Well, that’s what _most_ of them were doing, at least. Eli was wasting time with a kino, but that was hardly unusual behavior on his part. Rush was beginning to regret coming. There was too little privacy for him to do what he _really_ wanted - spread his wings and just fly for a good hour or so - and it wasn’t as if his expertise was needed. He was just picking fruit. Anyone could have taken his place.

Except that Young had wanted him to come along. He hadn’t said so, but it had been in his eyes and in his manner. Young clearly trusted his soldiers to keep everyone safe, but the added insurance of sending an immortal along with them didn’t hurt, or so he probably thought. Rush wasn’t sure what he could actually _do_ if a threat did present itself, but with any luck it wouldn’t come to that. He could spend an afternoon picking fruit if it granted Young some piece of mind, and he was sure to get his feathers groomed for his trouble. No great hardship, that.

A disturbance on the edge of the clearing distracted him from his thoughts. Both Scott and Greer had come to attention and were staring warily at… _something_. A smallish, dim figure just beyond the edge of the tree line. Rush turned to watch and was just in time to see a pale boy step into the clearing.

The reddish fruit slipped from Rush’s slackened fingers, and his mouth fell open in astonishment. He was staring at an impossibility.

The boy was not really a boy at all. He was a young man, but an unusually slim and delicate one. His skin was very fair, with a smattering of freckles across his nose, and his hair was such a pale shade of blond that it appeared almost white. His eyes were a crystalline blue, too bright and glowing to be natural. In fact, nothing about him seemed quite real. He was dressed in strips of animal hide inexpertly tanned and sewn together into crude, barely-adequate garments, but he wore them with such an air that they might as easily have been made of fine silk. Compared to the sweaty, earthy humans surrounding him, he looked more like a fairy tale illustration come to life.

Or like an angel.

The young man swept his eyes over the assembled humans with an indulgent little smile, and then he turned his full attention on Rush.

“Welcome,” he said in a language Rush had not heard in over a century and a half. His voice had a pristine, bell-like quality to it. It was also smug as hell.

Well, shit.

Rush rubbed his hand over his stubbly chin and stared helplessly at the angel. Thank heaven the creature’s wings weren’t out, but that was only a small mercy. This was a disaster.

“I think an explanation is in order,” Rush responded in the same language, “or I’ll have to assume I’ve simply gone crazy.” The words felt strange in his mouth, and he realized that he had never spoken his native tongue while wearing his human disguise. Interesting.

“Whoa,” Eli said. “You _understand_ him?”

Volker looked both confused and annoyed, as if personally offended by the fact that Rush was fluent in an alien tongue that he was unfamiliar with. “What language is that?”

The angel smiled as if enjoying the situation thoroughly. Little git.

 _You can’t exist,_ Rush thought desperately. _Not apart from me._

“It’s a dialect of Ancient.” he improvised hastily, walking into the center of the circle of curious humans that had formed around the angel. “One so different that it would have been quite unintelligible to most Ancient speakers. It’s very obscure. I had to become familiar with it for a side project I worked on. A sort of Ancient numerical puzzle. Doctor Jackson assisted me.”

It wasn’t too much of a stretch. Honestly, it wouldn’t have surprised Rush very much to learn that Daniel Jackson really _could_ speak Angeltongue.

Most everyone seemed convinced by this clumsy lie, although Volker didn’t look too pleased about it. But Greer was glancing back and forth between Rush and the angel as if he knew something wasn’t right. Damn. Rush had known he was going to be trouble.

“So he’s Ancient?” Chloe asked.

The angel beamed at that.

“I guess he must be,” Rush said grudgingly. “Thought I’m not sure how he could have gotten out here unless… yes, he must have been ascended, and then he descended to this planet. That would explain his presence here, where he _shouldn’t_ be.” He shot the angel an annoyed look as he said it.

“Oh, I like that,” the angel said, still in his own tongue. “I’ve certainly been called worse things.”

“How about ‘impossible?’” Rush hissed back.

The angel’s expression turned more serious. He shook his head slowly, as if disappointed in Rush. “If you thought about it for thirty seconds, you’d realize exactly how it’s possible.”

Rush blinked at him, thinking it over. He got it in less than twenty. “Oh, shit,” he breathed.

He’d said that last bit in English, so naturally all of the humans started asking him questions at once.

“What?” said Chloe, Eli, and Volker all at the same time.

“What did he tell you?” Scott demanded.

“Yeah, Rush, tell us what the nice Ancient man said.” That bit of sarcasm was from Greer.

Rush flung up both his hands to quiet them. “If everyone would just please back off and let me talk to him, I’ll be able to tell you more. Right now, I don’t know anything for certain. Please, a little space.” He met Scott’s eyes pointedly.

Scott eyed him for a moment, then nodded. “Okay, people, let’s get back to work. We still need these supplies. Eli, dial the gate. I’ll report in.”

The humans grudgingly dispersed, and Rush took a few steps closer to the angel.

Or rather, to himself. And wasn’t _that_ a strange feeling.

“A solar flare,” he said, instinctively keeping his voice low even though he wasn’t speaking in English. “That’s what happened, isn’t it? You were thrown back in time. How long have you been here?”

The _other_ Rush dipped his head in a nod. “About twenty years ago. I stopped keeping track after a few years, but it’s about that.”

“You’ve been alone?”

A haunted look widened his blue eyes. He nodded.

Well, that explained why he had dropped his human disguise, at least. There was no point keeping it up and accepting the limitations it imposed if there were no humans around.

“What happened to the others?”

His duplicate ran his fingers through his pale hair and gave a weary shrug. All signs of his former amusement and smugness had been wiped away, and Rush could see that he was exhausted and sick with grief. He knew that look in his own eyes too well to miss it. “Most of the team either fell sick or were killed by the local wildlife after the solar flare interrupted the gate connection. I think it’s possible that all of the humans are sick, by the way. They were dropping one by one.”

Damn. That was all they needed. The humans were frail enough as it was without adding widespread illness to their problems. “How bad is it?”

“It’s fatal.”

Rush swallowed and glanced back over his shoulder at the group of mortals milling about, chatting, and collecting provisions. Could they really all be sick? Did Lieutenant Johansen have enough medication to treat them all? Probably not. At any rate, her efforts obviously hadn’t worked the first time around, so they weren’t likely to work now.

“Who dies first?”

“Volker.”

Well… it could be worse.

“How long do we have until the solar flare?” Rush asked.

The angel squinted up at the sunlight filtering through the trees. “About two hours. My suggestion would be to make the most of the next hour and gather as much food as you can. Then send everyone back through the gate, regardless of who’s showing signs of illness. You can’t afford to wait. Once the gate connection is interrupted, you won’t be able to get back to the ship before nightfall. Then you’ll have to face some nocturnal predators, and believe me, you _don’t_ want to do that. They’re reptilian creatures who attack in huge swarms and are indescribably vicious.”

Lovely. This planet had unexpected teeth. He’d have to congratulate Young on his foresight. “Why did you go through the Stargate when you knew you wouldn’t reach Destiny?” he asked quietly.

The angel shrugged and offered him a mirthless smile. “Nothing left to lose.”

Rush looked toward the Stargate, which was currently active while Scott reported to the colonel. Then he looked at his duplicate with misgiving. “So, now what?” he asked, but what he really meant was, _Now what do I do with you?_ The angel probably expected to be invited on board. He supposed they couldn’t just leave him here, and yet he was very far from wanting another version of himself underfoot.

“Now,” said his duplicate with a slight return of smugness, “I’m going to show you the provisions I’ve been storing up against your arrival, and then we’ll negotiate a fair price for them.”

 

* * *

 

Rush’s duplicate - or perhaps more accurately, the _original_ Rush - had converted a nearby cave into a stronghold. The cave openings had been carefully sealed with loose stones and boulders and some sort of improvised grout or pitch, leaving only a small opening about three feet in height. When Rush crawled inside, he spotted a boulder of just the right size and shape to be pushed in front of the entrance and thus close it off completely. Those nocturnal predators must be no joke.

To his surprise, he found that the interior of the cave was lit by a soft blue light emanating from hundreds if not thousands of round, spotted, glowing objects attached to the ceiling. He craned his neck to get a better look, and prodded one with a finger. Then he gave a little start and a laugh when it produced a dozen spindly legs from under its round body and scuttled away.

“Bit mesmerizing, aren’t they?” the angel commented “I found a colony of them in another cave system and transferred them here little by little. I still can’t tell what they eat, but they seem happy enough up there.”

“Very convenient,” Rush murmured. He glanced around at the walls, noting without surprise that they were covered in calculations marked out in charcoal. It wasn’t entirely clear what all of the them pertained to, but who knew what projects he would occupy himself with through twenty years of solitude?

There was a strong, enticing scent in the air, and he began to look around for its source. He spotted some bundles of roots and vegetables that seemed to have been hung up to dry, and with them… meat. A _lot_ of meat, some bound up with twine, some wrapped in dry leaves, some still in the process of drying out. It wasn’t exactly fresh steak, but after eating little other than gray protein paste for weeks, it smelled divine. His mouth began to water, and his stomach growled.

“Yes, those are some of the provisions I have to offer you,” the angel said. “The meat keeps well if you store it right, so I’ve been stocking up. It won’t last _too_ long, with all the people you’ve got on that ship, but it will be a welcome change of pace for a little while, I imagine.”

It certainly would. “What else do you have?”

“Dried fruit, vegetables, herbs, tubers. I can’t promise all of them are fit for human consumption, mind you, but none of them have disagreed with me. But the most important thing…” He walked over to sort of depression in the ground at one corner of the cave. The depression turned out to contain a clear pool of water, under which rested a dim shape about the size of a plastic grocery bag. “...Is this. Go ahead. Fish it out.”

Rush followed him to the pool and knelt beside it. When he reached into the water, he found that it was surprisingly cool, and he speculated that it had originated from an underground spring of some sort. The dim shape turned out to be a sack made of some thin, stretchy material that Rush was very much afraid had been some large creature’s bladder at one time. It had been stitched closed so carefully as to be virtually watertight.

“That’s the closest I get to refrigeration here,” the angel said as he watched Rush examine the sack. “I harvested those a few days ago, so they should still be fresh. I replenish my stock about every seven days.”

“What are they?” Rush asked, pinching the bag experimentally.

“Venom sacs from those predators I mentioned.”

Rush turned and lifted his brows inquiringly at him. “Poison?”

“Anesthetic, actually,” the angel said, flashing a grin at him. “It’s the teeth that kill you, not the venom. That stuff actually seems to have a lot of interesting medicinal properties. I’ve been testing it out on some of the local wildlife. Aside from its usefulness as an anesthetic, it seems to accelerate healing and even fight illness.”

Rush glance at the sack and then back at his duplicate. “You’ve been running tests on animals.”

The angel shrugged. “I was bored.”

Fair enough.

“Can it cure the crew, do you think?” Rush asked.

The angel sighed and rubbed at his forehead. He shrugged again. “I have no way of knowing that for certain, but I hope so. It seems almost a panacea. Figures it would come from such a nasty source, doesn’t it?”

“Mmm,” murmured Rush. His thoughts had already raced ahead to the future. A future in which he had to share his purpose and Destiny and Colonel Young with another Rush. He had never been very good at sharing. Destiny was _his_ mission, and Young was _his_ flock-mate. But there was no question that the crew needed these supplies, especially the venom sacs. “You mentioned a price,” he said reluctantly. “I suppose you want to come with us.”

The angel’s lips twitched into wry, lopsided smile. “You’d think that, wouldn’t you, with your head and heart so full of Destiny. Well, my purpose has changed. I realized it the moment I woke up here after running through the gate. That’s how I knew that I had duplicated myself, and that you’d be here, someday, needing my help.”

Rush’s relief at the knowledge that he would _not_ be spending the next however many years saddled with another version of himself was so strong that it probably bore careful investigation. Later. He would wonder about the implications later. “Excellent,” he said with a degree of cheerfulness that his angelic self clearly found irritating, if not surprising, “What is it you want, in that case?”

“A kino remote. I need to be able to travel by Stargate.”

“Easily arranged,” Rush said. “You might as well take a back-up too. There’s not exactly a shortage of them.”

The angel nodded. “And I want to be groomed.”

Oh. Well, that could be a bit awkward. Rush had naturally never groomed _himself_ before. But there was certainly no real reason why he couldn’t, in this case. “All right. I’ll do it now.”

“No,” the angel fixed him with a steady, resolute gaze. “I want Colonel Young to do it.”

The feelings that this statement produced in Rush - reluctance, discomfort, a dangerous thread of something that could only be identified as possessiveness - were entirely illogical, and he dismissed them immediately. Of _course_ his alternate self wanted to be groomed by Young. It had been twenty years, and he missed his former flock-mate. Perhaps, in a way, he wanted to say goodbye. Good. Fine. No harm in that.

He still didn’t quite like it.

“I’m sure he’ll be willing,” was all he said.

The angel looked at him as if he knew _exactly_ what Rush was thinking. He would, of course. But then he smiled, and the anticipatory pleasure on his youthful face was sweet and genuine. “He will,” he said with quiet confidence. “He wouldn’t refuse me that.”


	2. Realization

Young waited in the gate room with his eyes on the Stargate and his hands clasped behind his back to curb his uncharacteristic urge to fidget. According to Scott, he was about to meet one of the Ancients, and not just _any_ Ancient: one who had once been ascended. That was not something that happened everyday, not even in the Stargate program. Rush had assured Scott that the Ancient man could be trusted, and Young knew Rush would never allow him on board if it wasn’t the truth. So, here Young was, preparing for his introduction to one of the creators of the Stargates and of Destiny herself. Perhaps he could be excused for a little jitteriness under the circumstances.

The Stargate connected and Rush stepped through, his stride long and purposeful, his head high, his eyes aloof. That was his untouchable look, Young recognized. A bit assertive, a bit protective, revealing nothing. Something must have happened on the planet to throw him off balance, because this was not the relaxed, mildly bored Rush who had left the ship several hours ago.

And then another figure stepped through the gate, and Young had to stifle a gasp. In the blue glow of the portal he looked ethereal, unreal, thoroughly inhuman. He was small and pale and beautiful, and Young felt an almost staggering surge of emotion at the sight of him. It felt like the pure joy of recognition, but there were no memories associated with it. He had no idea what was happening, or why he felt this way, but he knew one thing for certain: this man wasn’t Ancient.  

He was an angel.

Rush caught his eye and gave him a significant look, confirming his suspicion. All that stuff about a descended Ancient had been a cover story. They were dealing with one of their own kind here, and Young had no idea what that meant for him, a fallen angel. What was the proper etiquette in this situation? What kind of treatment could he expect to receive from this unknown - but hauntingly familiar - angel? He might be fallen, but he was still the commander of this ship. He couldn’t allow himself to be cowed or manipulated by someone who considered him beneath their notice.

But then he caught sight of the angel’s expression, and his uncertainty was soothed. The pale creature was looking at him with a dazzling mixture of relief and delight displayed upon his young face. Young smiled at him, charmed.

Rush stepped up to Young, blocking his view of the angel. “The team on the planet is gathering up the last of the provisions and will follow momentarily,” he said.

“Sounds good.”

“Doctor Volker seems to be ill, but Lieutenant Johansen plans to administer a remedy provided by our new friend here, and hopefully he’ll recover swiftly. The rest of us will probably need to receive a dose as well, since we’ve all been exposed to Doctor Volker. Lieutenant Johansen can fill you in on the details.”

Young blinked slowly at Rush, processing this information. Rush’s tone was casual and unconcerned, but his manner was less so. Volker’s illness was more serious than he was letting on.

“TJ agreed to give Volker a drug she knows nothing about?” Young asked skeptically.

“I managed to convince her that the situation was sufficiently urgent,” Rush said.

“I’ll definitely want those details,” Young replied coolly.

Rush nodded. “Yes, of course. But first, we have to decide what to do with our guest. He wants to meet with you, but that can wait if you’re willing to take him on the next leg of our journey. Otherwise, your meeting will have to take place immediately, as there’s not much time to return him to the planet before… Well, there’s just not much time.”

“Before what?” Young prompted.

Rush glanced around the room briefly. The rest of the away team had begun to return through the gate, and it was evident that he didn’t want to be overheard by them. “Later,” he warned.

The angel had stepped to one side so that Rush was no longer obstructing Young’s view of him. He offered Young a roguish, lopsided smile. For some unknown reason, Young’s heart skipped a beat.

Young leaned in closer to Rush and whispered, “You trust him?”

Rush’s lips quirked into a smile that was a perfect mirror image of the angel’s.

_Wait…_

“Within reason,” Rush said, plainly amused.

Young began to feel that he might be in over his head… even more so than usual. “Who… who is he?” he breathed.

“Oh, you’re beginning to guess, aren’t you?” Rush murmured, looking mildly pleased with him.

“Rush…”

Rush’s smile widened. “He’s me.”

 

* * *

 

The hallways of Destiny were quiet as Young made his way toward his quarters. He had just come from the infirmary, where he had received his shot of the venom that was apparently going to save the crew from a horrible epidemic. It seemed a shame that two doses had been wasted on him and Rush, but it couldn’t be avoided without blowing their cover.

TJ had admitted to him that she had been reluctant to believe in the venom’s healing properties at first. But the “Ancient” had explained his research to her, with Rush translating, and Volker had asked her to try it on him. Her decision to take the risk and administer the venom had undoubtedly saved Volker’s life. He was now resting in the infirmary along with a few others who had begun to show symptoms before receiving their doses, but they were all doing well. _Thank God_.

Destiny was in FTL again, and that always made him feel slightly more at ease. Plenty of things could go wrong in FTL, but it still felt safer, somehow.  Maybe he would be able to get some sleep tonight. On the other hand, his mind was still teaming with unanswered questions. In all the chaos of bringing supplies on board and making sure everyone was inoculated against the pathogen in their water supply, he hadn’t had any opportunity to talk to Rush’s fascinating double yet. Rush had briefly explained how the duplication had occurred, what had happened to his counterpart’s shipmates, and why said counterpart looked entirely different. His double hadn’t said anything, but he had watched Young as if he couldn’t tear his eyes away. Young had opted to let him stay on board until they reached the next habitable planet, so he’d had him escorted to one of the empty quarters hours ago. Hopefully he was settling in all right.

Apparently he was, but not quite in the way Young had imagined. When Young reached his quarters and opened the door, the very first thing he saw was Rush’s angelic double curled up on his bed, fast asleep. He froze in the doorway, stunned. Had he gone to the wrong room? Was he really that exhausted? But no, these were definitely his own quarters. It was Rush - fragile, elfin Rush - who must be lost.

Young closed the door behind him and approached the bed as quietly as he could. Rush lay in a fetal position on top of the covers, looking about twelve years old and ridiculously vulnerable. He was wearing an oversized black t-shirt and a pair of workout pants, cuffed several times to fit his short legs. Young stood over the bed and blinked stupidly down at him, at a loss to know what to do. Should he wake him up? Fetch the other Rush - _his_ Rush - and make him do it? Wait for him to wake up on his own? Back away slowly and find another room to sleep in for the night?

He knew he was overthinking it. This was just his Rush, plus twenty years. Blond hair and freckles didn’t change the man’s core. So Young just needed to treat him like he always had, and everything would be all right.

And the niggling little voice in his head that said he was overlooking something _massively_ important could just shut up.

Young sat down carefully on the edge of the bed and reached out to touch the sleeping figure, but then he withdrew his hand. No, better not. Rush didn’t like to be touched except during grooming. So he cleared his throat and said gently, “Rush?”

“Mmm?” Rush stirred, stretched, and blinked his eyes open. Catching sight of Young, he grunted and hastily sat up. His pale hair was disheveled, and the wrinkled covers had left an imprint on his cheek. “Fuck, I didn’t--” he paused to yawn, “--mean to fall asleep. Forgot how comfortable these beds were.”

“Thats… okay,” Young said, trying to hide a grin at the picture he made.

“I guess you’re wondering what I’m doing here.” Rush looked slightly sheepish.

“Well, Rush - the other one - did say you wanted to meet with me, but he didn’t say I’d find you in my bed,” Young said dryly.

A soft flush spread over Rush’s pale cheeks. “Right. Well, that wasn’t the plan.” He looked down at his hands, which were folded tightly in his lap as if he didn’t trust them to wander free, and then back at Young. He seemed to make up his mind about something, and a moment later he had flung his arms around Young’s middle in a surprisingly strong hug.

At first, Young had no idea how to react. He hesitated, then awkwardly put his arms around Rush’s skinny body and held him close. It felt… really good, actually. His last hug seemed like it had been a long, long time ago.

Still…

“Are you sure you’re really Rush?” he asked doubtfully.

Rush laughed against his shoulder, and it sounded almost like a sob. He pulled back, and Young reluctantly released him.

“I’ve been completely isolated for twenty years,” Rush said, shaking his hair out of his eyes and offering Young a wry little smile. “I guess I don’t even know anymore.”

“I guess not,” Young said, supposing that even Rush needed contact from time to time. Shit, he hadn’t even been groomed for twenty years. Of course he was starved for touch.

“Besides,” Rush continued, “That sort of thing is easier in this form. My human skin remembers too much pain.”

Young wasn’t sure how to respond to that. He had no real idea what Rush’s time on Earth had been like, other than a few dark hints that Rush had let drop now and then. Something about having been shot full of holes - that one in particular he remembered, because it had shocked him at the time. He hadn’t asked for details because he felt certain Rush would either share that information in his own time, or not at all. Maybe this Rush would be willing to tell him more, but would that be a betrayal of his own Rush’s trust? Maybe. He couldn’t tell.

While he was still puzzling over this, Rush appeared to move on to a new train of thought. His keen blue eyes took on a speculative expression as he gazed up at Young. He tilted his head to one side thoughtfully and asked, “Do you even realize you’ve not been speaking English?”

“ _What_?”

Rush snorted and his eyes danced with delighted amusement. “You had no idea. Amazing.”

Young grunted, feeling startled and annoyed. Yes, now that he was thinking back over their conversation, he could tell that that Rush was right. The language they had been speaking wasn’t like English at all. And yet it was, because somehow they were both his native language simultaneously, old muscle memory overlapping with newer, programmed memory and turning everything to confusion in his head. For a moment, both languages clashed together in his mind and he couldn’t utter a single word. But then he felt it - the separation, the rules and vocabulary and idioms forming two distinct groups in his head - and he breathed a sigh of relief.

“I don’t know how I missed that,” he admitted.

Rush’s smile broadened, but he shrugged. “I just take it as a good sign that you still know Angeltongue,” he said. “Perhaps not all your memories are completely lost after all.”

“I guess,” Young said, although he still wasn’t completely sure he wanted those memories back in the first place. Did he really want to know what he had done to get himself kicked out of heaven? Already it ate at him, the thought of what kind of person he had been, the horrible acts that he must have committed before his fall from grace. Would knowing the truth be better, or worse? Most of the time, he just prefered not to think about any of it. He particularly didn’t want to think about it now, when it was late and he was tired and he had a familiar yet bewildering guest in his room.

Time to change the subject. “So, what was it you wanted to talk about?”

Rush’s expression turned hopeful and eager, and Young immediately knew the answer to his question. “You didn’t come here to talk at all,” he guessed before Rush had a chance to voice his request. “You want to be groomed.”

“Well, it has been twenty years,” Rush reminded him, as if he felt the need to justify it. As If Young would ever refuse to groom him under any circumstances. As if the whole process didn’t provide Young with as much comfort and balance and joy as it did Rush.

“I know,” Young said. “I remember what that feels like. Come stand in front of me.”

Rush didn’t need to be told twice. He scrambled off the bed, pulling off his voluminous t-shirt as he went, and positioned himself along the side of the bed with his back toward Young. With his shirt off, he looked even smaller and frailer than ever, but Young recalled the force of his hug and knew that appearances were deceptive. An angel was still an angel, even if he was barely five feet tall.

Rush’s mottled gray wings emerged from his back, and Young watched with his usual fascination. But when he got a good look at the condition of those wings, he was more than a little dismayed. He had never seen Rush’s feathers in such disarray before. He definitely had his work cut out for him.

“You’re a bit of a mess, aren’t you, Fledgling?” he murmured.

Rush went absolutely, terrifyingly still at the words. Young stared at the back of his head in uncertainty, wondering if he was even _breathing_ , and also wondering about the significance of the endearment that he had just inexplicably uttered. The feeling that he was missing something terribly important rose again in his mind, but there was nothing he could do but shove it back down and hope that he hadn’t given too much offense.

“I’m sorry,” he said, keeping his voice as calm as he could with a racing heartbeat and a confusing swirl of thoughts and emotions, disconnected from any concrete memories. “I don’t know why I called you that.”

Ruth folded his wings and turned slowly to meet his eyes. His expression was a blazing mixture of wonder, shock, and doubt. His lips were parted and his freckled skin was even paler than usual. “I think,” he whispered, and then he had to clear his throat before continuing. He seemed to be having trouble forcing out the words. “I think I’ve been stupid.”

“I doubt that,” Young said, more baffled than ever.

“I have,” Rush insisted. He lifted a hand to clutch at his forehead and blew out a sigh. He was blinking rapidly, as if his eyes were irritated or just possibly as if he was fighting against tears, and that wasn’t right, that wasn’t _Rush_. He couldn’t be struggling not to cry while staring at Young with that earnest, broken expression.

Young couldn’t stand it. On impulse, he reached out and grasped Rush’s shoulder, giving it a gentle shake. “It’s okay,” he murmured, even though he had no idea if that were true. He wasn’t even sure what was happening, but Rush was on the verge of tears and he had to do _something_.

Rush sniffed and breathed a soft laugh. “Yes,” he agreed, wiping at his eyes. “It is. I’m sorry.”

“What’s the significance of what I said?”

Rush shook his head at the question. “Please don’t.”

“Rush…”

Another headshake. “I’m not even supposed to be in this timeline. I’m doing my best not to interfere more than I already have.”

“Your interference saved every human on this ship,” Young protested.

“Well, that’s my good deed for the day, then,” Rush said flippantly, but his tone didn’t match the beseeching look in his eyes. “I’m afraid that’s all I’ve got in me.”

Young sighed and rubbed at his eyes. Whatever Rush was reluctant to interfere with, it probably had something to do with Young’s former life, which Young wasn’t sure he wanted to know about anyway. Rush was right. It was better just to let the subject to drop. “Okay,” he said. “Turn around.”

Rush offered him a small smile in thanks, and did as he was asked. He unfolded his wings and stretched them out, giving Young a painful view of matted and ragged-looking feathers. Young ran his fingers over a clump of tangled coverts, and Rush gave a low whine and shuddered in relief.

“So you don’t want to ‘interfere.’ Is that you want to be dropped off at the next planet?” Young asked as began to detangle and smooth out Rush’s plumage.

Rush made a vague humming noise, no doubt already feeling the almost drug-like effect of grooming. Young loved talking to Rush during these sessions because this was usually when Rush was at his most open and honest. The only problem was that it was sometimes hard to keep him on topic, as he got a little distracted by the process.

“Was that a yes?”

“Um, no. There’s something else I have to do,” Rush said.

“Another mission from God?”

Rush dipped his head in acknowledgement. “A new calling, yes. First I have to find my version of you.”

“Isn’t he gone? You went back and time, so nothing in your timeline actually happened, right?”

“Perhaps,” Rush replied softly, “but I don’t think that’s how it works. I think it’s possible that the very act of traveling through time spawns two parallel universes. One in which certain events haven’t occurred yet and can thus be altered, and one in which the events have already occurred.”

“So there could be an alternate universe where your Young is still on Destiny, probably in the midst of an epidemic right now.” Grim thought, that. Young pushed it out of his mind before it could settle in and turn his stomach. _There but for the grace of… well, Rush._

“Yes,” Rush said, and it was clear from his tone that he was equally sickened by the thought. But then, he had already watched multiple shipmates die horribly, hadn’t he? To Young, the loss of the crew was a hypothetical situation, one that had been avoided. But Rush had lived it, or at least part of it.

“Now, I know it’s happened before, but it’s not like jumping between parallel universes is easy,” Young pointed out.

“I’m aware of that,” Rush sighed. “I’m not sure how I’d manage it, so I’m hoping that’s not what happened in this case. It’s possible that during the solar flare, someone on Destiny tried to dial the planet. That wormhole would have been affected by the solar flare.”

Young grunted and dug his fingers into a particularly knotty clump of feathers, and Rush gave a moan of pleasure. Young chuckled, his mood lifting. Rush’s uninhibited delight over being groomed was rather enchanting. He had never been quite this vocal before.

“So are you hoping that your Young tried to go through the gate, then?” Young asked.

“Or that the whole ship was affected by the timeline alteration.” Rush’s voice had gone a bit fuzzy, and Young suspected that he was getting sleepy again. “The effects can be wide-reaching. I’m sure you’re aware of the time loop that once affected multiple planets for a period of months.”

“I remember. I mean, I don’t _remember_ , but I heard about it after the fact.”

Rush nodded. “So he could still be in this universe somewhere, on Destiny.”

“But still alone.”

A long pause, and then, “That’s why I have to find him,” Rush whispered, “and I will. I have all the time in world.”

Young said no more, allowing Rush to enjoy his grooming in peace. He had plenty to reflect on in the meantime. Rush’s determination to find his Young was touching, although not necessarily surprising. He had already demonstrated that Young was important to him. But still, it was nice to have further confirmation of it.

It took quite a while to get all of Rush’s feathers in order, even though Young was trying to be efficient about it. By the end of it, Rush was swaying on his feet. He probably hadn’t slept much through all those years on that hostile planet, and now that he was back in a safer environment, he was ready to drop with fatigue.

“Rush,” Young murmured when he was finished. “You can put your wings away.”

“Mmm?”

“Put your wings away. I’m done.”

Rush made an grumbling sound deep in his throat, but after a few seconds he complied. His pristine wings sank into his back and disappeared. Then he lurched to one side, and Young had to grab his waist and pull him into his lap to prevent him from falling over.

“You’re not going to make it to your quarters, are you?” Young asked him, amused.

Rush leaned back against him and sighed contentedly. That would be a ‘no,’ Young guessed.

Young looked down at the blond head and didn’t even bother to suppress a fond smile. He should probably carry Rush to the nearest couch, but that sounded like too much work. The bed was right here, and it was large enough for both of them. If Rush felt any discomfort at finding himself Young’s bed in the morning, it was his own fault. He could have waited a few more hours to be groomed, but he chose to ask for it late at night. He could deal with the consequences.

Having decided on this, Young lifted Rush onto the bed and tucked him in. Rush murmured under his breath once or twice, but his eyes were closed and his body was lax, so Young ignored him.

When he slid under the covers beside the sleeping angel, Young felt again that overwhelming sense of recognition and joy that he’d experienced on first seeing this Rush. It felt like coming full circle, or possibly like coming home. Unsettled, he pushed the feelings aside. He needed sleep, not more questions - they would keep. Besides, this version of Rush would be leaving soon. There was no point getting attached.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized I can't leave alternate!Rush's story hanging like this, so there's going to be one more short chapter after this one.


	3. Reunion

Rush wasn’t actually sure why he had bothered to show up for his double’s departure. There was more than enough activity in the gate room already, with everyone so eager to say goodbye to the little “Ancient.” His angelic counterpart was smiling tolerantly as he received well-wishes that he pretended not to understand and accepted a rucksack full of provisions and tools for his journey, none of which could reasonably be spared from Destiny’s depleted storerooms. As Eli tucked two kino remotes and a pair of kinos into the bag, Young walked up to the edge of the group. The angel’s smile warmed to something sweet and genuine at the sight of him, and Rush experienced a wave of prickling irritation. He hoped like hell that _his_ eyes never took on that round, shining appearance when he looked at Young. It was both absurd and incomprehensible.

It had been a week since his double’s arrival on board, and that was quite long enough, Rush felt. Although, to his surprise, the angel hadn’t interfered with his work as much as he’d expected, it almost would have been better if he had. Instead, he’d always seemed to be wherever _Young_ happened to be at any given moment. The crew had noticed, and there were many smiles and comments about the young man’s crush on the colonel. A few had even ventured to point out that the colonel seemed pretty smitten too, but opinions were more divided on that point.

And really, Rush wouldn’t have cared about any of that if it hadn’t been for the fact that he barely ever got a chance to confer with Young in private anymore. His double always seemed to be lurking around, and on that first morning after his arrival, Rush had actually caught him sneaking out of Young’s room. But at least when Rush later made a flippant remark to Young about it, Young’s response had been mild, unembarrassed, and reasonable.

“He fell asleep while I was grooming him, so I let him stay. He’s been through hell.”

“Well, you might just tell him to be a little more discreet,” Rush had said. “Anyone could have seen him in that hallway.”

Young had snorted, and his mouth had tilted into that interesting, not-quite-a-smile that seemed to be his all-purpose reaction to things that either amused or angered him. “As if you’ve never left my quarters at a suggestive hour, Rush. You’ve never worried about it before.”

True, but then he’d never been accused of having a crush on Young, nor had anyone ever speculated - at least within his hearing - that Young had any feelings deeper than friendship for him, either. That made a difference, somehow.

Sergeant Riley had started the dialing sequence, and the whirring and grinding sounds of the spinning gate interrupted Rush’s thoughts. His double was to be dropped off on a barren rock of a planet because that was the best of his options at the moment. Young had suggested that they wait and set him down on a more viable planet, but the angel had protested that he didn’t care about viability - he wasn’t planning to stay on any one planet for long anyway. He had a new purpose, and he had a flock-mate to search for. It was the most sensible thing Rush had heard him say since he’d come aboard.

He heard the “whoosh” of the unstable vortex, and then watched his double make his way toward the gate. Rush noticed that he seemed very small in his borrowed BDUs, with a hefty rucksack slung over one shoulder. Very small, and very child-like. But mostly, very determined.

The angel stopped just before the portal and turned to look out at the people who had gathered to see him off. He hesitated there, scanning the crowd as if trying to memorize every face. It was, Rush realized, the last time he’d see most of them. Then he nodded a silent farewell and was gone.

 

* * *

 

As the light from an alien sun faded along the horizon, the bioluminescent heather in the meadow where Young stood took on shades of green and purple and blue. He watched the glowing patterns of color shift and ripple across the ground and thought to himself that this must be the most beautiful graveyard in all the universe. It was well over a century old by now. The bodies interred in the strange, spongy soil of this world were probably long gone, but he still maintained the graves, complete with simple, crudely carved headstones, with loving care. They were his only company. They reminded him of who he was.

They weren’t all accounted for, of course. Scott and his away team weren’t here, but Young had no doubt about their fates. The disease that had taken the ship by storm had been tracked down to the water supply, so all of the humans had been infected. Only he had been spared. And Rush, he supposed, but who knew where _he_ was. Maybe he had traveled on through the gate system. Maybe he had gotten trapped in some horrible situation and Michael had come down to rescue him and take him home. Maybe he, like Young, was alone on some planet, unwilling to leave behind his dead. Although that seemed unlike him, somehow.

Night was coming on. This was the best hour for fishing (or angling for aquatic creatures that vaguely resembled fish, at least), so Young left his shipmates to their slumber and set off to fetch his handcrafted fishing rod. He made his way through a forest of trees that swayed and chittered to themselves in the twilight, up a steep incline studded with outcroppings of red quartz, and down a winding trail into a small, wooded valley. Destiny’s working shuttle was parked in a clearing through which a ribbon of crystalline water threaded its way before disappearing into the deepening woods. Branches parted courteously for him as he approached the clearing, although one of his favorite trees did venture to ruffle his hair as he passed. And then he was out in the open with nothing but stars over his head.

The air was crisp and cool and made him thankful for his warm clothing. He wasn’t much of a spinner, knitter, or tailor, but he’d had to learn the basics in those first few years as his uniform had grown more and more threadbare. At least he was in no short supply of wool-like fiber to spin into yarn. It grew like mistletoe on the local trees, festooning their upper branches like so much cotton candy. He’d learned early on that climbing unfriendly trees would end badly for him, but the friendly ones happily plucked bunches of fluff from their own branches and bestowed it on him freely. He also had a few garments made of animal skins, but he rarely hunted. The sentience of the trees had made him wary of killing the local wildlife unless he was entirely sure that they lacked higher intelligence. Fortunately, the aquatic creatures seemed no more intelligent than fish on Earth, so he had deemed them safe to eat.

He reached the shuttle, opened the rear hatch, and swept his eyes over the dimly lit interior in search of his fishing rod. What he spotted instead was a small, blond figure seated in the cockpit, stroking pale, delicate fingers over the flight controls. At the sound of the hatch opening, the creature looked back over his shoulder and smiled at Young, and Young’s initial alarm turned to wonder. He knew this boy. He didn’t know how or when or where, but he knew him, and he was so, so grateful to see him.

“Hi,” Young said awkwardly, stepping into the shuttle and closing the hatch behind him. It never occurred to him that he might want to keep his only escape route open. This was undoubtedly a friend.

“Hello,” the pale boy replied softly. He rose from his chair and approached Young. On closer inspection, he turned out to be a little older than Young had first suspected, although not by much. It was his height that gave him the appearance of childishness, more than his face. He could not be any taller than five feet, and possibly less, Young mused. He was also fine-boned, blue-eyed, and beautiful, and he was swimming in an oversized set of SGC-issued BDUs.

Suddenly, Young knew exactly who he must be. He didn’t know _how_ , but the _who_ seemed blindingly obvious.

“ _Rush_.”

The young man’s smile turned dazzling, and he ran the last few steps that separated them. He flung himself into Young’s arms, and Young held him as tightly as he dared, fighting a losing battle against a constricting throat and stinging eyes. Tears began to roll down his cheeks, and he let them fall. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if his emotions spilled through the cracks in his heart. It didn’t matter if he wept brokenly like the weary angel that he was, sickened by so many decades of loss and pain and loneliness. It didn’t matter if Rush saw everything that he’d ever tried to hide, because they were always meant to cover each other’s weaknesses. Perhaps they had even been designed for it.

And so, when Rush rose up on tip-toe and pulled Young’s face down toward his, it seemed natural to allow it. And when he felt soft lips brush against his own, it seem only right to kiss back, to lick and suck at that mouth in growing hunger and desperate gratitude, because Rush was here, _finally_. Life could begin again.

Rush eventually withdrew from the kiss, but he remained quite contentedly in the circle of Young’s arms, beaming up at him. “You look barely twenty,” he teased. “Who knew you could be so pretty?”

Young flushed at Rush’s appreciative tone and shook his head. He had no idea what his true age was, but it had been only a couple years since the last time he had recycled his disguise, so Rush’s estimate of his physical, human age was probably pretty accurate.

“Well, at least I have an excuse for looking like a kid,” Young pointed out. “What’s yours? Is that your real form?”

“Such as it is,” Rush said with a shrug. “It’s serviceable enough. Why, don’t like it?”

Young ran his fingers through Rush’s fine, white-blond hair to see if it was as silky as it appeared. It was, and that, somehow, felt right too, like another piece clicking into place in his head. “I do like it,” he murmured, “and there’s something… familiar about it. I can’t remember why.”

“Because you knew me,” Rush said, leaning into Young’s stroking fingers as if he’d never even thought of shying away from him before. As if he could think of nothing he’d like better than to be held and touched by Young. “We were friends, I think. Maybe even more than that.”

“You know who I am.”

“Just found out a few weeks ago,” Rush said. “I’ll explain everything later, I promise. And I’ll help you discard your human disguise, if you want me to.”

Young swallowed uncomfortably at the thought of a new identity and a new body dropped into his lap all at once. He had too many other things that he wanted to understand first, and then maybe, _maybe_ he could start to think about getting acquainted with his past self. “One thing at a time,” he said.

“Fair enough. How long have you been here?”

Young frowned. “Not sure. A few lifetimes.”

“A _few_ lifetimes? How many?”

Rush’s eyes were wide with surprise, and that struck Young as odd. Rush must know how long they had been separated as well or better than Young did. Come to think of it, a lot about this situation seemed odd. Rush’s BDUs, for instance, seemed fairly new. He certainly hadn’t been wearing them for over a century, that was certain. And had he really spent that long looking for Young? This planet wasn’t terribly far, relatively speaking, from the planet on which Rush had been left behind. It was true that Young had never successfully found his way there on any of his rare excursions through the gate, but he had always assumed that Rush, with his superior knowledge of Ancient technology in particular and scientific matters in general, would be better at navigating the galaxy via the Stargates than he was. Still, there was no guarantee than any two planets would be connected by the gate network, given the limited range of these particular gates. Maybe Rush had only recently found some other means of bridging the gap.

Rush was still clearly waiting for an answer to his question, so Young said, “Three. This is my third time starting over.”

“That’s, what, about 150 years, then?”

“About that.”

“Your wings must be a wreck.”

Young rolled his shoulders, reminded of the discomfort that always lurked there under the surface. ‘Wreck’ didn’t even begin to cover the damage. Young had given his wings up as a lost cause a long, long time ago. Flying was just a memory - almost a dream. Now, when the skies turned gray and mottled like the patterns on Rush’s wings, Young focused his thoughts on him, and not on soaring through wind and vapor and plummeting toward the ground with the rain, only to rise again at the last, breathless moment before impact. Those days were behind him.

Until now. Now he would feels hands on his feathers again, and he would know what it felt like to be revived and refreshed and comforted after so many years of neglect. Now he would fly again, with Rush beside him, glorying in freedom and companionship.

“You’ll soon fix that,” was all he said.

“Yes,” Rush agreed quietly.

“I suppose yours are pretty bad too.”

Rush shook his head. “No, I was groomed quite recently. I’ll tell you about that later, too. But it’s clear you were thrown much farther back in time than I was. Did you go through the gate? No, of course not. You couldn’t have. The wormhole would have doubled back on itself, but Destiny wouldn’t have been there 150 years in the past, so you’d be floating in space right about now. The whole ship must have gone back in time.”

Young blinked down at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Did anyone dial the gate to the jungle planet during the solar flare?”

Solar flare. Time travel. _Jesus_. That explained a lot. “That’s what caused the connection issue? A solar flare?”

“Must have been,” Rush said. “It’s the only phenomenon we know of that can cause time travel via the Stargates.”

“We made several dialing attempts. The last time, there was some sort of electrical discharge from the gate. It caused a lot of damage, fried a few systems, killed Brody outright and injured Riley and Barnes.”

And that had been only the first in a long line of horrors. That had been before people started dropping like flies from a mystery disease that was eventually traced to their water supply. Before they realized that Destiny was going to jump back into FTL before they got a chance to recover the away team. Before Doctor Park informed him that the life support system had been so critically damaged in the explosion that there was no hope of fixing it with the supplies they had on board. Before it became clear that no one was going to survive the epidemic long enough for it to matter.

“What happened to Destiny?” Rush asked predictably. Young didn’t fault him for it. That was just Rush.

“Long gone, but she was nice enough to find this planet for me. The life support system had failed and the air was running out. I had to leave. I brought everyone through the gate--”

“ _Fuck_. Really?”

Young just stared steadily down at him.

“Of course you did,” Rush murmured. “I suppose you buried them, too.”

“Yes.” He refused to justify that decision. He’d had time enough for it, and he’d needed to do it. Not for them - he knew they were all long past caring. He’d done it for himself. “And then I packed the shuttle as full as it could hold with supplies and flew it down here to use as a shelter.”

Rush glanced around the inside of the shuttle. “Not a bad home. Sturdy enough to weather through quite a few centuries, I imagine.”

“Seems that way.”

Rush hummed softly and started to pull away. Young resisted for a moment, afraid to let go. He’d spent too long in isolation to easily relinquish the only proof he had that the future would be any different. Rush seemed to catch onto his worry, because he pulled Young down for another kiss. It was slow, sensuous, and terribly reassuring. And then, while Young was still floating with delight and pleasure, Rush patted his cheek briefly and slipped out of his arms.

He wandered back toward the cockpit and surveyed the control panels speculatively. “Think it still flies?”

It took a few seconds for Young to shake himself out of his warm daze and trail after him. “Probably,” he said, “but I don’t see much of a point.”

“True,” Rush agreed reluctantly. He plopped back down into the pilot’s chair, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. “Just seems a pity to leave it. Our last piece of Destiny.”

Young approached the chair and glanced down at the little angel curiously. “Are we going somewhere?” he asked uneasily. The idea of leaving this planet so soon after Rush’s arrival left him feeling a little lost. Why couldn’t they relax for a while, become reacquainted with each other, explore what they could be to each other now that their barriers seemed to have come crashing down? Why couldn’t they enjoy the beauty and bounty of this planet together before they set off on another adventure?

“I have a new calling,” Rush said, gazing distantly out the window.

“It figures,” Young muttered.

“There’s a race of non-corporeal beings active in this galaxy, and I’m quite certain that I’m meant to investigate them. Possibly even to make contact with them. Before recently, I didn’t know the specifics of my calling; I just knew that I was supposed to find _something_. I know more now. A few days ago, I stumbled across an interesting structure on a neighboring planet. It was very enlightening.”

Rush looked up at him, met his eyes, and Young couldn’t resist the surge of exasperated fondness that shattered his misgivings. There was no point trying to persuade himself that he would not follow this man anywhere, under almost any circumstances. Rush was incandescent with drive and purpose, and Young would always be drawn like a moth to that pure, unfailing light.

“Okay, I’ll bite. What did you find?” he asked.

Rush smiled, and Young felt that he had just passed some sort of test. “A cross between a museum and a library. Although they seem to be purely spiritual themselves, these creatures seem to delight in studying and manipulating matter. They’ve recorded many of their findings and deposited them in an isolated building in the middle of a rocky wasteland. You should see it - a pillar of red stone stretching toward the sky like a beacon. There’s a door in the base, and inside is a vast archive. I couldn’t even begin to figure out what it all meant. Their technology appears to be a mash-up of the technologies of many races, and something else, something I couldn’t determine how to interact with, because it wasn’t physical at all. I was able to access one computer terminal - clearly based on Ancient design - and found documents written in many thousands of languages, including Ancient… and Angeltongue.”

“Angeltongue,” Young repeated. “Our language?”

“Yes. It seems they’ve been studying us,” Rush said. His smile widened, and there was a sharp, hungry look in his eyes. He was on the scent of a new mystery and clearly enjoying it.

“You and I, or angels in general?”

“Angels in general. And many mortal races as well, although they don’t seem to quite understand the concept of mortality, from what I read.”

“And how can they do all that from this galaxy, way out in the middle of nowhere?”

Rush shook his head. “Oh, they don’t live in this galaxy. They don’t live on the physical plane at all. This is just where they keep all their stuff, essentially.”

Young sighed and ran his fingers through his shaggy curls. Here they went again. More burning questions, unfathomable creatures, and impossible odds. More missions from God. Was he really going to trade in his quiet, eerie paradise for more craggy planets, alien archives, and ancient secrets?

No. He was trading it in for Rush. The rest came with the territory.

“Let me guess. We’re going back to that library?”

“That’s right,” Rush confirmed, hopping nimbly out of the chair. He tried to sweep past Young, but Young intervened and pulled him into another embrace. Rush laughed and went willingly enough, threading his arms around Young’s waist and resting his cheek against his chest.

You stroked his fingers through Rush’s pale hair again. “But not right away.”

Rush’s arms tightened around him. “No… there’s no strict timetable, I suppose. We can stay here for a while. Is that what you’d like?”

“What I’d really like,” Young said slowly, “is dinner. Then I want to be groomed.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Rush murmured. “Then what?”

“Then…” he paused to press a kiss to the top of that blond head, “I want you.”

“Mmm. That can probably be arranged.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Young grinned to himself. Who knew that wooing Rush could be that easy? But everything else had been so difficult for so long that perhaps the universe owed him something. Soon he would be saying his goodbyes to this shuttle and his favorite trees and the beautiful meadow where more than five dozen members of his crew rested, but tonight, and presumably for every night to come, he had Rush. Maybe there was a ledger somewhere where it all balanced out - the suffering and the relief, the loss and the love. Maybe he’d even come out on top, in the end. The future was certainly looking brighter now than it ever had in memory.

“Good,” he said softly. “Come on, then. Let’s go catch dinner.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on human disguises: 
> 
> At one point I had assumed that an angel's human disguise would change every time it was recycled. That makes sense, right? Otherwise, wouldn't someone get wise to the fact that there's a long trail of people who all looked quite similar throughout history? Only, there really _are_ cases of remarkable likenesses throughout history, and we all just joke that they must be vampires and shrug it off. So what if they aren't vampires? What if they're really angels in disguise?
> 
> Also, have you ever seen pictures of a very young Louis Ferreira? Because, um, yes.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Kudos and comments are always appreciated, and be sure to visit me on [Tumblr](http://seekingidlewild.tumblr.com/) for writing updates and general fandom squeeing.


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